Sunday, April 28, 2013

Revising for
my finals is taking up virtually all my time, but now it is absolutely necessary
to write a post.

Let’s take
it from the election of the new President of the Republic. Who is he, by the
way? Easy to remember: the same as before, Giorgio Napolitano, to turn 88 this
June.

The Italian
President is elected by Parliament. To be elected during one of the first three
votes, the candidate needs to reach a threshold of 2/3 of votes. This is
because our Constitution encourages the whole Parliament to elect a President
who is vastly approved. However, after the third vote the candidate only needs
a majority to win.

During the
election of the new President, we witnessed almost a breakup of the
Partito Democratico. As an Italian comedian said: “The Democratic Party
suggested a candidate (=Franco Marini), then the right voted for him, and the
left did not!”. That is in fact correct:
since the vote for a President is free and secret, one does not have to align
to the party’s line. The Democratic
Party proposed Franco Marini, who was voted by Berlusconi’s party too, and who
should have easily reached the threshold of the 2/3. But he didn’t, because a
lot of MPs from the Democratic Party in the end defected and did not vote for him. And so
Marini stepped down.

Following
that, the Democratic Party suggested Romano Prodi, former PM. Despite the fact
that the right did not approve of him, the party was supposed to vote for him in a
cohesive way, but again they didn’t. And Prodi stepped down too, after accusing
his party of causing him a really poor figure.

Meanwhile,
Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement, which had held an online vote to decide
their candidate for the presidency, was pressing for Stefano Rodotà. Rodotà has
a left-wing background and he is an esteemed jurist, but, for some reasons that
they never explained very convincingly, the Democratic Party would not vote for
him.

After two
days of pointless votes, on 20th of April the Italian Parliament
(still without a government at the time) asked Giorgio Napolitano to stand as a
candidate again. He accepted, and he was elected by a very vast majority. Napolitano is the first President in the history of the Italian Republic to serve on a second term. His re-election
has been criticised under several points of view; above all, he is really old,
and he had always claimed that he did not want to stand again. On the other
hand, there were a lot of people praising him for his courageous sacrifice and
his commitment to the nation. I am not the most qualified person to address his
decision to be re-elected, but I sincerely wish for him to stay in good health.
Regardless of what one might think of Napolitano, he has been, and he still
is, going through a lot, and even if I am talking about politics, I find it
hard not to feel empathy for someone who might not finish his term of
presidency alive and yet accepted the job.

When
Napolitano gave his acceptance speech, he was really harsh towards the parties which have
been unable to deliver reforms, included a new electoral law (ironically, the
very same parties cheered and applauded him a lot while he was saying so).

Then
Napolitano called Enrico Letta (46-year-old and relatively low-profile) from the
Democratic Party, to be the new PM of a grand coalition which will include
Berlusconi’s party too, in order to have a majority in both chambers.

Giorgio Napolitano and Enrico Letta

Today Letta
announced the members of his Cabinet. It is immediately evident that Berlusconi
will play again a fundamental role in the country’s politics, as proved by the
assignment of some key portfolios to members of his party. Above all, Angelino
Alfano, Berlusconi’s pupil, is the new Home Secretary.

To conclude
this long post, I have a brief consideration. Studying Politics here in the UK,
when I heard the phrase “grand coalition” and when I learned that in some
countries it is possible for the left and the right to govern together
effectively, I was pleasantly surprised. I found it really democratic, and a
great sign of cooperation for the sake of the country. In other words, I saw it
in a very positive light. But in Italy, the most common word used to translate “grand coalition”
is “inciucio”, which more or less I would
translate with “dirty deal”. There is actually a sort of rebellion towards the
Democratic Party, because it was not able to gain the support of the Five Star
Movement, and now is forming an alliance with Berlusconi, who should be
their archenemy.

I have no
troubles understanding why this is the case: Berlusconi destroyed the Italian right and
replaced it with the cult of his own person. And when he was in government, he
never failed to take care of his own trials or businesses before anything else. For an honest party, agreeing to cooperate with him is political suicide. And a “grand coalition”, in Italy, becomes a dirty deal.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Some of you
might still be puzzled by the political stall that resulted in Italy
following the general election. This is due to several factors; one of them, as
I already wrote, I think is the fact that the Democratic Party 's candidate was
not someone like Matteo Renzi, and a lot of people who wanted some new faces ended
up voting for Beppe Grillo. Another factor is Berlusconi's return, since he
still has a lot of fans who will remain faithful to him, no matter what.

But the
main cause for this mess is, according to many, the Italian electoral system.

I already
wrote a post about this several months ago, when the media and every political
party discussed the possibility of electoral reform. Possibility that,
nevertheless, never came true.

So, in the
last election, we still voted with our current electoral system. I have never
heard a single person claiming that this is a good system. The "ten wise
men" appointed by President Napolitano keep repeating that their priority
must be an electoral reform. What we all wonder is why they have not done it
yet if they really wanted to, since this could easily have been done during the
last year of Monti's government.

The current
system is generally known as "porcellum", which means "pig"
in Latin. It was renamed by political analyst Giovanni Sartori, after being
defined "porcata" by Roberto Calderoli, member of the Northern League and Minister who wrote the
law during the last Berlusconi’s government. "Porcata" is a noun
which more or less could be translated as "something so bad that it could
have been made by a pig”. Rubbish, in other words.

Roberto Calderoli

The current
electoral system is a variant of proportional representation, usually known as
“party-list proportional representation”. In this system, it is up to the
parties to make a list of the candidates that might be elected, and seats are
allocated to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party gets.
However, the Italian system ensures a “plurality bonus" for the party, or
coalition, which gets the greatest number of votes. In other words, over 50% of
seats are ensured for the first winning party (or coalition), even if that
party got, let's say, 30% of votes, and this implies that the system loses much
in terms of proportionality.

The system
has closed lists: voters cannot express their preferences for candidates, all
the choices are made by the parties. Because of this, Parliament is filled with
people who would have never been re-elected if the choice were left to voters.

But what
caused the chaos we are witnessing now is the fact that the voting system
differs for the two chambers of Parliament: in the lower chamber, the Chamber
of Deputies, seats are allocated on a national basis; but in the upper house,
the Senate, seats are allocated only on a regional basis, and this turns
Lombardy, the most populated region, in a sort of "Italian Ohio".
This also means that the system is quite biased in favour of the Northern
League, that is very strong in Lombardy. Plus,
whereas the threshold in the lower chamber is 4% for single lists and 10% for coalitions,
in the Senate it is 8% for single lists and 20% for coalitions.

In other
words, it is really difficult for a party to secure a majority in both chambers
and, considering the perfectly equal distribution of powers between chambers in
Italy,
this can be a real issue. This is why Bersani failed to form a government: he
had a majority in the lower chamber but, because of the different counting
system, he did not have one in the Senate.

Now, we are
all waiting to find out whether the "ten wise men" will actually
suggest an electoral reform and, if they do, how the new system will look like.